Found!
by Starykid
Summary: What would you do if you found out that you had daughter 16years ago, but were only told that you gave birth to only one? This story is about a girl named Catori, meaning Spirit. She has lived with mountain lions her whole life.R&R to find out more!
1. Author's Note

**Author's Note:**

There will be some mild language and nudity in this story. I just got done watching a story on TLC called **_Wild Child: The Survival of Abandoned Children_** (Or something like that). I don't want to alarm anyone if you hear or read something that you don't understand. I hadn't wanted to do a story like this until I knew all the facts. And even though I don't know all the facts at the moment, I will be doing research while writing this story. Thank you for anyone that takes an interest into the story!


	2. Flashback

_**Flashback will be in italics**_

**Flashback:**

_The sound of two baby's crying could be heard in the delivery room, but only one was given to the family in the waiting room, the other, given to a couple who could never have children. A year went by, and all the baby did was cry, they wondered if they got the wrong baby. They were told that they had been given the weaker baby, so to get the paternal parents out of the hospital faster knowing that they had a healthy baby girl._

_They told their family members that they were taking the baby on a camping trip and that they would be leaving town shortly after returning, for fear that the paternal parents would find out what happened. But when they came back from the trip, without the child, they told their family, the girl had been killed by mountain lions. Not knowing what really happened, the family went along with the story._

_Six years later, the couple went back to that same mountain to see if the child had survived the harsh abandonment. When they saw the child was still alive, they tried to take her back home with them. But the mother lion saw what was going on, and the pack of lions attacked and killed both people. Search and rescuers found the body's three days later. The pack of mountain lions, with the child on the mother lions back, had moved farther up the mountain, as to not be hunted and killed._

_When the girl turned ten, a family called the Camden's camped on the mountain, and got their first glimpse of what a real wild child looked like. They had heard about other children being neglected by their parents, or never really having parents around on a T.V. show, but never in there wildest dreams would they ever catch a glimpse of such a child. When they tried to find her, all they found were lion tracks. They left the mountain and never came back._

_But ever year that has gone by, the girl always wondered if anyone would love her like the lions loved her. And if so, how would they show it? What the girl didn't know was that when she was talking to her family of lions, she was gaining the knowledge to find the family that would try to keep her away from her animal family. She distinctly remembered humans as mean, fowl creatures that liked to abandon there children wherever they went. Or at least that was what happened in her case._

_Could someone really go back to living with people after living with mountain lions for nearly 15 years? When he campers started returning the year she turned eleven, she & her family ventured among them. The campers talked to her, trying to get her to tell them her name. She didn't have a name. One of the campers just happened to be Native American. On one such a day, the girl had been circling the camp grounds with the lions, searching for something to eat or drink, when this camper stopped her._

_The lions imminently went into protection mode and circled the girl. The camper—who will later be named in another chapter—reached out toward the girl and pointed to her chest, saying "you, Catori. Your name mean Spirit because you live as the Spirit does, FREE." _


	3. Catori's Life With The Lions

**Catori's Life With The Lions:**

As I grew up on the mountain, the lions provided food and drink for me everyday. I stayed next to my mother at all times, even when I started getting taller. When I was first came to live with the lions, I was barely a year old. I remember coming up to the mountain with my human parents and then not going back down with them. The next thing I remember about my human parents is when they came back to see if I was still alive. I was six years old then. I had lived with the lions for nearly five years by then.

I was out walking in the woods, looking for some fruit to eat, when I saw someone coming up the trail and ran to see if it was a human. I hadn't really had any contact with humans since my human parents had abandoned me. I didn't recognize these humans as my parents until they tried to take me away with them. I growled and fought to get away. My lion mother heard my growl and ran to my side, along with the rest of the pack. They attacked and killed them. We left to go farther up the mountain, me on my mother's back, so nobody would know that I was among the lions.

When I turned ten, a large family came to the mountain and camped for the weekend. I had again been foraging for fruit and vegetables when I caught a glimpse of a little girl that kind of looked like me. She stopped laughing among her family members when she saw me inching towards her. She had never seen a half naked, wild child before now and she screamed, afraid that I would hurt her. She ran back to her family, screaming the whole way. What I believed was her mother, picked the little girl up, trying to get her to calm down.

She kept pointing to where I was hunched down, looking at these humans. A young boy started forward, but my mother came out of the bushes, putting herself between me and the boy. She made a low growl that told me to get on her back or the humans might take me away. I got on her back and held on while she trotted back up the mountain. I looked back to see the family packing up and getting ready to leave the mountain. I had wanted so much to speak to these humans, but knew that it would have been the end of my stay with my lion family.

A year or so later, the campers started to come back. My lion family, with me close to my mother, crept down the mountain again. We stayed at the edge of the campsites, waiting for the campers to be asleep, in there tents, to go steal the food that they so carelessly left out on the tables. But over the next couple days, the campers noticed us lurking in the shadows. They didn't mind as long as we didn't hurt their children. They also would let me sit among their children and teach me to talk.

On one such occasion, my mother and I were walking among the humans looking for something to eat and anything to drink. We were about to head out of camp when a human came up to me and stopped me from leaving the campground. My mother and the pack circled around me in a protective way and a low growl escaped from my throat as I hunched down on all fours within my family.

But the human only pointed a finger at me. She introduced herself as Polikwaptiwa which she told me means butterfly sitting on a flower, Poli for short. Her husband, she pointed to him sitting next a table, was Unvjadv Ajadi which means Speckled Trout, Jad for short. Then she told me that she would like to give me and my mother a name. She pointed at my chest and said "_you Catori which means Spirit because you live as the spirit does, FREE."_ She then pointed at my mother and said, "_Your mother Wichahpi which means Star."_

After that day, the campers started to call me Catori. More and more humans arrived on the mountain to see this wild child called Catori and her mother called Wichahpi.

At the age of sixteen, the press got ahold of my story, and along with cops, splashed my picture over the news, nationally.


	4. The News

**The News:**

"Hello, this is reporter Jane Casidy. And I'm live at the Siskiyou Mountains where there are reports of a wild child that campers have named Catori which means Spirit. They have also named the mother lion Wichahpi which means Star. They say that Catori, Wichahpi and her pack of lions have been coming down the mountain for years, taking water and food from the campsites. We are told that, about ten years ago, a couple was attacked and killed by a pack of mountain lions. There bodies were reportedly discovered three days later after another camper found them.

Nobody yet knows how long this child has been living among these lions. And yet she seems to know how to communicate between the lions and humans. For years, the police have been getting reports of a child that lives among mountain lions on the Siskiyou Mountains but have only once tried to take her from the mountains. We are here with Captain Jack O'Rielly. Captain O'Rielly, can you tell us of the first time you tried to take the wild child away from the lion pack?"

"As a matter of fact, Jane, it was about four years ago when we first learned about her living among the lions. We came up here to see if we could catch her and bring her back to civilization. We were sure surprised when the lions wouldn't let us within 2 feet of her. They would circle her and the mother would force the girl onto her back. While the pack kept us away, the mother took the girl up the mountain and out of sight. I guess the pack went up the mountain after we left because when we came back, not a single lion was in sight and we couldn't find any tracks leading up the mountain. It was as if the child had come back down the mountain with a tree branch and swept away all the tracks so that they couldn't be found."

"Thank you Captain O'Rielly. And back to you Susan."


	5. The Camden's

**The Camden's:**

Everyone was sitting around the television watching the news, when my story came on. They weren't expecting to ever see me again. They had left the mountain and never returned, scared that the lions would hurt the family. Now seeing my picture, Jane Casidy, and Captain O'Rielly up on the mountain talking about me and the couple that was killed ten years ago on the mountain by the lions, made them all shiver.

If the wild child was caught, they would do an immediate DNA test to see if the couple was the child's parents. If not, the lions would be killed and the girl taken back to civilization. But the question still remained. Would the child be able to live as a normal child? Or would she want to go back to the mountain and live with her lion family?

It was Ruthie who finally spoke up.

"She kinda looks like me, don't you guys think?"

They took a closer look at my picture. I had dark black hair with gold streaks in it. My face was dirty but they could see the resemblance between Ruthie & I. But what made it even weirder was the mark on my neck. It was the same mark that Ruthie had on her neck.

"Yeah she does. Hey mom, are you sure Ruthie isn't a twin because this girl on T.V. kinda looks like her? Hey wait a minute, isn't she the girl that scared Ruthie when she was ten on that mountain we camped on?"

"Yeah, she does look like her, but older. I wonder why her parents never tried looking for her. But then again, they did just say something about the lions killing a couple that they thought was her family ten years ago," Annie said.

"Maybe we should get Ruthie's doctor to tell us if she was a twin or not. Don't you think that would be a good idea?" Lucy said.

"We already know that Ruthie was a twin. Her twin sister died during the delivery, the doctor told us that," Eric said.

"I think the doctor lied to you so that you would get out of the hospital sooner with a healthy baby girl. Maybe this girl was given to another couple who couldn't have children and they left her on the mountain," Matt finished.

"That could be possible, but we don't know. Look, we'll go to the mountain tomorrow to see if we can talk to Captain O'Rielly about her. Time for bed everyone," Annie stated.


End file.
